My reaction at the thought that English-only plebes rely on these subs.

So begna conned me into working on this show, and the other day in between completely rewriting Shitiplex’s shitty script, I run into this ANN article from a prominent insider in the professional anime licensing world:

Simulcast subtitles are produced extremely quickly and under great duress. Mistakes, sometimes big but mostly small, get through all the time. it’s just a fact of life when you’re producing that many subtitles, that quickly. You simply don’t have time to proof-read and edit effectively.

…It appears that [simulcasters] don’t correct subtitles because “holy god, we don’t have time for that. We’ll do it if the licensor makes us, or we wrote something really embarrassing. Otherwise, no.” And if I were running Crunchyroll’s subtitle department, I would almost certainly say the same thing.

I could forgive this steaming pile of navelgazing horseshit if the author was just talking about typos here and there or derpy lines that appear infrequently. Sure, I work for a faceless media conglomerate that demands a high degree of quality control and overall professionalism under similarly tight schedules, the polar opposite of the slapdash operations he defends, but I could still forgive this rhetoric.

But at this point, the problem goes beyond random mistakes that can be easily ignored. It has started to affect the overall understanding of a show and ultimately how much enjoyment we can get from it. Working and the rapid-fire humor the franchise hinges on is a prime example.

External links.

Translation

Main Script.

ERROR

Aaand literally the first line in this shitshow is a mistranslation. korizu ni (“without fail”) refers to Valentine’s Day, mentioned in the very next line, not to Miyakoshi and her near-lethal Valentine’s concoctions.

ERROR

No, Yuuta thought those lottery tickets she threw at him were banknotes, and now she’s chiding him saying: “Have you forgotten what money looks like?”

ERROR

I thought about giving this a “Major Nitpick,” but no. This is supposed to be “winning numbers” not numbers that have been picked by the lottery player — which this line strongly implies.

ERROR

This is just jumbled word vomit that should be immediately evident to anyone who takes the time to reread what they just wrote. Literally: “People part of the ignorant masses entrust their dreams in simple pieces of paper.”

NITPICK

For shukou wo kaete it should be “change of pace” instead of “change the plan.”

ERROR

“Is this year’s chocolate in the shape of Nagata?” This would explain why Hairbuns turned pale because she thought Higashida was going to eat her.

The shitbirds at Aniplex/Daisuki/Crunchyroll decided to ignore this whole Adachi-kun… ga… su(ki) joke. BTW, this is the sequence that sent these subs down a full letter grade than I originally planned, because this is supposed to be a turning points in the pair’s relationship.

NITPICK

amai here would mean “naive” instead of “sweet”

ERROR

Yes, jisho.org and other JMdict dictionaries defines atsukurushii as “sultry/sweltering,” but a better dictionary would give you the word “stifling” or “suffocating” which is closer to the fucking context here, as in “those bangs look like they’d get in the way.”

ERROR

Oh-kay, let’s take this one step by step:

1. Full line is joshi no sukaato wo mekutte kaeri no kai de tsurushiagerarete kekkou hannaki datta Saitou-kun yo ne

2 He did not cry when he lifted a girl’s skirt.

3. The incident in question happened in a classroom on school grounds, not on the way home from school.

4. The incident in question is a kaeri no kai, which is typically a short meeting within a classroom right before class is dismissed. There, the teacher makes announcements, hands out fliers or whatever, and it is also an occasion where students make their reports to their Sensei.

5. Those meetings also serve as a kangaroo court/open-air execution grounds of sorts where the kids get to tell on one another for stuff they did wrong. At the time Saitou got snitched on for flipping girls’ skirts, and he almost cried from the public shaming.

ERROR

This is the very next line, but thankfully the mistake is easier to explain: “Don’t remember that!” (oboeten ja nee yo).

ERROR

Operative phrase is furimuite moraenai (not turn for the subject). The would turn “but pretend not to be” into “but can’t get that person to notice them.”

ERROR

Second screenshot should be “when the person they like just ends up hating them.”

ERROR

Just like a plan (TL Note: seisaku, not keikaku, means “creation”).

ERROR

Wow, we actually hit the trifecta of an overall context error, a rookie word mistranslation, and a straight-up guesslation.

Context error: Higashii says exchanging chocolates with those you despise is an okashi na hanashi (crazy idea). But, but, this is important, okashii (crazy) sounds like okashi (candy), so he punctuates that spiel with a “joke” about how chocolate is also okashi.

Word mistranslation: Higashida in the third pic says choko na dake ni, and the translation team thinks dake means “just” or, apparently, “all over a little.” However, dake ni is a set phrase meaning “since it’s this thing specifically,” a phrase that is often used in Japanese groaner puns.

Guesslation: The whole sign at the end is just fucked — period. First of all, the subject is Higashida, not Miyakoshi. Second of all, how the hell did the word “wit” (ウィット) turn into “tongue tied”? In any case, “he’s so pissed that he actually turned a little witty,” is not even in the same little league as this TL, let alone the same ballpark.

NITPICK

Just so we’re clear, kaa-chan refers to Higashida’s mom, not the raccoon’s own mom.

Other Observations

As opposed to “Drool.” The less said about the FOB script, the better.

Final Grade: D+

Here it is folks, your tiny little mistakes that your average on-demand anime watchers don’t actually give a shit about. Actually, this is starting to approach Hadena levels. But Hadena was merely doing free illegal fansubs; people out there pay real money to be lied to by these subs. Maybe we need to pay these companies more so that they can hire some quality checkers, who knows?

But I should have guessed that simulcast subs would develop into the same tiers as fansubs.

Yes, I’ll admit that this iteration of Working is not as strong as the past anime seasons. MC-kun is such a straightman that he shits out broomsticks. It also doesn’t help that pretty much every other character is sorely underdeveloped.

On the other hand, most people probably missed the sex joke in the fifth episode thanks to Aniplex’s fuckup. I really do hope this show stands or falls on its own merits, and not by how dogshit the professional subs are.

15 Comments

“Small and even medium-sized errors go by unnoticed by most viewers. So while there are occasionally some real whoppers that get through, the vast majority of these errors will only harm the viewing experience of a small handful of people.”

Well, I can’t really say I care about Working, but I feel bad for the fans.

Dedsubs continue to be dead, official subs only make small mistakes, almost no mistakes, almost never, everything gets quality checked and if they have translation errors they fix them as soon as they can, the translators really give it their all, Daisuki is the best when it comes to translations and Aniplex are almost as good as them, so everything is fine, amirite? Positive outlook (or just plain delusion).

Oh yeah, I also love Sentai’s piss yellow subs and how Funi and CR have once again raised the standards of anime streaming.

I’m not sure if you were seriously curious or not but they misread ウィット as “wait” and thought it said “She was so furious she had to wait for a moment.” (To collect her thoughts before she could speak again > tongue-tied.)

Love hearing translation reviews. Most of this would have gone right over my head and I would have been left wondering why the show is so unfunny. Not that your changes necessarily make it hilarious, but I’d rather get the intended product than this half-hearted attempt.

Damn. Those are some big errors. Besides probably not getting paid enough, I wonder if it also has to do with the INSANE amount of anime this season. Also Working airs on Saturdays, which is the busiest day for anime this season. Just looking at Crunchyroll’s schedule for Saturday – they have 20+ shows, 17 of them simulcasts from the new season. Sounds like a huge workload.

Anyway, a damn shame it’s this bad. Maybe I’d actually enjoy the show if the translation was better.